Notes: Based on a one-off manga by CLAMP, which is in turn based -very- loosely on Lewis Carroll's novels "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass".

Rating:

Miyuki-chan in Wonderland

Synopsis

Lewis Carroll gave us the chronicles of young Alice and her misadventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, strange dream-like domains where chaos is logic and the unexpected is mundane. However, Alice wasn't the only one to make a journey to exotic worlds -- young Miyuki, desperately late for school one morning, encounters a young lady in a Playboy bunny costume, falls through a large hole, and ends up in Wonderland herself!

Only this Wonderland is slightly different from Alice's version; here, Wonderland is an all-female affair, and Miyuki is suddenly the hottest guest in town. How will Miyuki deal with the strange, overly-friendly denizens of Wonderland?

Contains two episodes: "Miyuki-chan In Wonderland" and "Miyuki-chan In Mirrorland".

Review

Miyuki-chan In Wonderland knows it's not supposed to be an ecchi title, but wants to be one so badly that it takes every action it can to skirt as close as it can to the border, inadvertantly stepping over the boundary every once in a while. Every aspect of this title, every minute cries out for a release it knows it's not going to get, kind of like a solitary hamster in heat. The result? A rather muddled, confused short that will make most viewers squirm uncomfortably in their seats as they wonder to themselves, "Just where are they _going_ with this thing?"

Visually and aurally, there aren't many complaints to be had. Created by the famed all-female artist team CLAMP, Miyuki-chan has all the pretty trimmings one would expect from them. With vibrant colors and sharp, stylized art, Miyuki-chan, if nothing else, is some interesting eye-candy. One really gets a sense of being in a dream world, and the freneticly odd soundtrack only helps to achieve an overall effect alarmingly similar to using foreign substances to expand one's consciousness (not that I would know anything about that, mind you).

All this would be good enough if CLAMP hadn't decided to try their hand at ecchi, thus spoiling the dream-world they had so skillfully adapted from Carroll's masterpiece. Apparently in this Wonderland, every sentient being thinks that Miyuki is simply the hottest thing since stellar fusion and tries their best to convince her to have some fun, teasing her, peeking up clothing, surreptitiously fondling her ... It has all the class (and subtlety) of a porn flick, and I kept waiting for the characteristic guitar vamp to cue. ("Pleased to meet you, Miyuki ... my, you are _so_ pretty!")

I wouldn't recommend this anime, unless of course you're the lonely sort with absolutely nothing else to do on a Friday night (but I won't go there). If you like surreal dream-scape worlds, you'd perhaps be better off getting yourself a copy of Robot Carnival, or better yet, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams.

Recommended Audience: While nothing actually _happens_ between Miyuki and the citizens of wonderland, there are enough innuendos and close-calls to push this title well beyond the "PG-13" boundary. Not for kids, despite the deceptive title.